Madness is balance
by etheral-23
Summary: The universe had been reforged by Jackie. Feeling he has to do something before things get out of hand, Johnny Powell summons an old power that has existed long before in a previous universe in hopes of fixing things to the way they were. The Darkness, the Angelus, and the rest of the universe, shall witness the true power of both chaos and order. The power of Madness.


The universe had been rebuilt. There was no denying that. You had to be insane not to notice!... Well, then again, Johnny was kind of insane and yet he noticed.

But that wasn't the point!

Jackie, Jackie had done something, with the Darkness, they had reformed the universe once it ended like it always does, but there were many things that remained the same. Jackie couldn't hold into account every single detail for him to change things so they'd suit him.

He had split the Angelus but she had soon found a new host, the new one being her old host that broad that lived in New York. Or she _had lived_ in New York but now lives there again. Again, not the point! The Angelus had a host once more, and was amazing her forces.

There were many things that remained the same. Johnny was pretty sure the Magdalena still existed and worked for the Church. The Artifacts were still there, around the world. Johnny never felt that Jackie was a very smart guy, but for him to leave around stuff that could be used to defeat him!

Jeez, talk about short term planning.

He got his sweetheart Jenny back, from what he heard. But the kid, his daughter, in this reality she grew up without the Witchblade's bearer as her mother, without that that would give her _balance_. In short, she would turn into a very evil little bitch.

Things were getting out of hand, if the catalyst to recreate the universe grew influenced by the Darkness… Johnny shuddered to think about it.

Luckily Jackie had paid no mind to him and he had been reborn in this universe with all his memories and knowledge. So, without anyone to bother him anymore, Johnny did what he did best, he researched through the eldest and most obscure objects in existence. And he found something interesting.

There were objects, texts, and a bunch of shit, that just didn't seem to hold any place or significance in neither the previous nor present universe… and from what he could tell, it was because they didn't belong in their universe, but they had once and wouldn't be going anywhere.

Just like their owners.

Johnny read the word again and again. Daedra. If he was right, then the Darkness and the Angelus were kindergarten brats throwing mud at each other compared to these _things_. Their universe may have ended, but they themselves had not. They still existed, on another plane of reality, but had no way of reaching the mortal world anymore.

The crazed occultist began to plan. It was a risky gamble, but it couldn't be much worse of letting a dark god child grow to twist reality to her liking… he hoped.

He needed to summon a Daedric Prince, only they had the power to stand up to the Darkness and make things go back to the way they were… or they may just say 'Fuck you' and turn their entire world into their playground.

He weighted the consequences should he summon a chaos god or let things run their course. Evil god child fucking up all of reality and subjugating the human race if the Angelus and her forces failed OR chaotic god setting things right or fucking up all of reality and subjugating the human race.

From what he had read, Daedra were neither good nor evil, at least, most weren't , but still many represented the aspects of the worst of reality.

Johnny decided to take his chances.

He kneeled before the summing circle he had drawn. Repeating over and over the incantation he had deciphered from the old texts.

"I ask the realms of Oblivion to lend me their ears, so that my pleas may reach the embodiments of chaos and change" Johnny threw some kind of red powder over the gate-like sigil of the summoning circle. It floated in the air and spun around forming a typhoon of arcane energy. Gusts of wind sent papers and various light weighted objects flying across the room. "Hear my pleas, O ye lords of Oblivion, I come before you as a humble servant. I ask of you to set your gazes upon the realms of mortal kind, and aid me in this time most dire"

Suddenly, it stopped. The red powder fell to the floor, the swirling mass of arcane energy dying like blown out candle. Johnny stared blankly at sigils in front of him, then at the messy(ier) state his room was in.

He shrugged "Well, I tried"

"That you did my boy!" A voice full of mirth with a distinctive Irish accent bellowed.

Slowly, ever slowly, Johnny turned his head and saw an older man, dressed in two colored flamboyant clothes. His bearded slightly bearded face showed a insanely large smile. One of his iris was a shining silver while the other shun golden, both surrounded by black sclera. Johnny felt unnerved by looking into his eyes, they held knowledge of cosmic forces which existed before time was even time, a power that compelled you to do whatever this _being_ desired. Yet at the same time he felt… at peace, it was if throughout all his life he had been lost and by looking into those eyes he could find his way home.

He crunched as if sitting on an invisible chair, a cane rested beneath the palm of his joined hands. "I must say you've surprised me mortal. And in a good way! Like when someone offers you pie or when you see a person getting stabbed with a comb. Hah!"

Johnny got the feeling that he made a grave mistake.

"Wasn't expecting to return to the mortal realm after Mundos's time finally came. What a mess that was! I mean, little Dragonborn's adventures had just finished and BOOM! Five thousand years later the universe goes out the window" The mad being shook his head. Not enough times to even wash your clothes these days.

Johnny thought that it would be best to get the god's attention before he got bored and decided to incinerate him. He cleared his throat. "Uhh-ah. Sir? Y-y-yes sir. May I a-ask whom do I have the honor of addressing?"

The mad god's smiled widened (If that was even possible). "Why, it's been such a long time since I needed to introduce myself" He leaned closer, his eyes bearing into Johnny's. "I'm a part of you, of every mortal in existence, a shadow in the logic of your mind, the twisted voice in a corner of your psyche. Once, I was known to all mortal kind and now thanks to you little mortal, I shall be known again"

The being stood up and spread his arms widely. "I, am Sheogorath, Daedric Prince of Madness"

Ah, shit.

"Oh don't give me that look" Said the Prince. The mortal's mind was clouded with fear. "It could have been worse, MUCH worse. You could have summoned the Lord of Destruction or the King of Rape" He smiled. "But! Thanks to your delightfully demented mind, you managed to summon me! The most elegant and charming of all the Princes"

Sheogorath couldn't help but feel the strange state of the universe. Though the ties that bound Oblivon and Mundos were gone, the aedric protections remained in part. Though a large portion of his power remained on the Isles, the Deadric Prince had never manifested on the mortal plane with so much of his power before.

It was a strange universe, he felt. And not in the good sense! There was definitely an Aedric presence in the cosmos but it was… amorphous, like it barely had a conscience on its own. Because of that the entity wasn't taking any action against him. And there were two other mayor entities. One embodied chaos and darkness while the other represented light and order. They were very powerful, of that Sheogorath had no doubt, yet they paled compared to the Princes when they were at full power, which only happened on their respective planes of Oblivion.

Interesting. The Mag God decided that this was worthy of his time "Now tell me little mortal" His smile caused Johnny to shiver with fear. "Why have you summoned me?"

A long explanation later.

Sheogorath's eye twitched. The mortal's explanation had been thorough, yet all it brought him was rage.

Johnny cowered, feeling safer by being as close to the floor as possible.

The chaos and order of this cosmos was in the hands of two entities. Pathetic excuses for the embodiments of the two primordial forces in the universe he might add. That Angelus lass felt the need to impose so much order that she was not unlike Jyggalag in that regard. At least the Lord of Order was self-aware, imposing order at unnatural levels was simply chaotic, for chaos is the highest form of order. An eternal cycle that made his existence possible, as the Deadrid Prince of Order, and as a daedra, a being of chaos. The Angelus instead, believed herself to ultimate expression of righteousness in the universe, not realizing that she was a being of chaos as much as the Darkness. At least the Aedra acknowledged that sometimes a little chaos was needed to maintain order.

The Darkness wasn't any better. That thing saw itself as the chaos in the universe. But that was not true. Something that was chaos itself would not need to create chaos to sustain itself. The Princes played with the life of mortals for amusements, not because they needed the chaos caused by them. _Daedras are the chaos_.

This 'war' between them was just an infantile tantrum. They fought just because they saw themselves as opposites and each desired to expand their influence on the mortal world. The conflict between Aedra and Daedra had been much more than that. They had fought because the universe demanded it, they weren't opposite forces, they were the different manifestations of the same powers that are meant to clash so the universe would continue to exist, advance, change, create and destroy. In that beautiful symphony of chaos and order the Aedra and the Daedra served as the one of the central pieces that sustained the universe.

The other important, were the mortal.

Mortals weren't neither order nor chaos, they were _both_. The perfect, single, beautiful incarnation of the two primordial forces was the mortal soul. Mortals were the balance in that magnificent cosmic cycle...

…yet the mortals' spirit had dimmed. Sheogorath remembered his days as a mortal quite clearly, it had given him a deeper understanding and value of the soul once he had ascended. On Nirn, mortals had been brave and mighty, requiring nothing but the strength of their arms and the wisdom of their minds to become legends. Some had such strength of will that they could, and often would, defy the gods. They were the masters of their own fate. Here… the mortals were submissive creatures as a whole, gone was their fire, the strength of their souls, replaced with fear and the lack of drive to accomplish their goals.

Mortals had lost their place in the eternal cycle, having been forcefully taken by those two _shmucks_.

Most Aedras loved mortals with all their hearts. The Princes may have treated them as toys but saw the value and strength of their spirits, their place in the cycle, that is why they've always chosen them as pawns, to see which role would they fulfill, and it would never be either order or chaos alone. Most Princes would sacrifice a million mortals without a thought, but they'd never dare bring their whole kind to extinction, they acknowledge how important they were.

Not like these two 'almighty' entities were doing.

There was no tune, no beauty, no color, no music, no true chaos, no true order, no _nothing_, in this pathetic attempt to carry out the great cycle.

Johnny was sweating buckets, not because of the fear he felt at seeing the god's rapidly increasing rage on his face, but because the temperature of the room had risen at least thirty degrees.

Sheogorath could barely hold the rage he felt. This universe was ruled by a chaos that existed for the purpose of causing more chaos to feed a creature of darkness, when in truth it should hold _no purpose whatsoever_. An order that failed to see that chaos was needed to maintain order which purpose had been lost long ago, and most likely would never recover it until it acknowledged the chaos as its other half.

It was madness! But it wasn't the madness he himself represented no! It was madness without joy, without grieve, without laugh, without tears. It wasn't the madness that manifested itself as the magnificent swirling pool of both chaos and order. Its very essence had been taken from it… that was unacceptable.

Unecceptable.

Johnny observed both in fascination and horror, as the mad god began to shine brighter and brighter still. But this wasn't a light that just illuminated, no, this was a light that also _obscured_.

_Unacceptable_.

The occultist decided it now seemed a good time to hide under his bed.

_UNACCEPTABLE!_

A pillar of light emerged from the apartment, tearing it to pieces in the process, it reached the heavens, clouds swirled around it like the eye of a hurricane. More clouds, darker in color and in density, gathered. They covered the sky in a dark night. Lightning flashed, thunder roared, and suddenly…

…_madness_.

* * *

Jackie Estacado stared slack mouthed through the window as cheese of all kinds, bow liquid and solid, feel from the sky. He did not even blink when a giant cheese wheel crushed the hood of his expensive car. The bearer of the Darkness could say only one thing.

"What the fuck…?"

* * *

Danielle Baptiste could only stare as she and her girlfriend, Finch, where currently being bathed in, what she would never admit out loud, was the greatest cheese she's ever tasted. Finch on the other hand, decided that today had been a bad day to go for a walk in the park. The bearer of the Angelus and her companion/follower had only one thing to say.

"What the fuck…?"

* * *

Johnny Powell, maddened occultist, and technically the person responsible for the strage phenomenon, stared at the god who had performed the _oddest_ miracle/plague in the history of _ever_. In that moment, he knew what the right thing to say was.

"What the fuck…?"

The Mad God breathed heavily as he tried to calm his nerves. He knew of only one way that would allow him to think in a perfect balance of rationality and insanity, a way that would allow him to remain on this wretched plane of existence without succumbing to his rage.

Taking away the 'maddest' portions of his soul and sealing them way, leaving only a bit of his insanity, he donned the appearance of his mortal self.

Johnny was no longer seeing the flamboyant dressed old guy, instead, he saw a dark tanned man close to his thirties. He wore a long red cloak that left his muscular chest exposed, dark midnight blue pants, and rugged edged metallic boots made of some kind of dark metal. His long deep black hair fell to his sides of his face and all the way down to his waist. His eyes still shone the same silver and golden, only this time, his sclera were a clear white.

He was still Sheogorath, Lord of Madness, but the reigning part of him was currently Valerius Latro, Grand Champion of the Arena, Archmage of the Mages' Guild, Grey Fox of the Thieves' Guild, Master of the Fighters' Guild, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, Hero of Kvatch, Champion of Cyrodiil. And, in his most humble opinion, all around badass.

"Sorry about that" His voice carried the same power as before, but his accent was now some kind of western European. "Lost my cool for a second there" The mortal was struck speechless, something very rare for him. "Why don't we carry on this conversation somewhere I just _know_ you will love" He grinned. It was a small yet demented grin. "And there we can discuss how to fix this mess you call universe and make it into the mess it deserves to be"

* * *

_I had this idea in my head for a while and i just had to publish it. Now, I'll admit my knowledge of the Darkness/Witchblade universe is much more limited than my knowledge of Elder Scrolls, I haven't read ALL the comics but i understand enough so i can write this, still if i make any kind of mistakes with the character's personalities of Darkness/Witchblade or facts of the universe and such, please let me know_

_Etheral-23 out!_


End file.
